In 1997, Col Philip Corso’s book,
The
Day After Roswell, appeared and quickly rose into the New York
Time’s best seller list with his revelations concerning his role in
a classified program to seed extraterrestrial technologies into the
private sector.

Col Corso had a distinguished career as a Military
Intelligence officer, serving in senior positions during the Second
World War, the Korean war, and under the Eisenhower administration.

It was during his assignment as ‘Special Assistant’ to Lt General
Arthur Trudeau, who headed Army Research and Development, that Corso
became head of the newly established Foreign Technology Desk.

This led to breakthroughs in developing
the integrated circuit, night vision technology, fiber optics, super
tenacity fibers, lasers and other cutting edge technologies. Corso’s
book details a remarkable case; a former senior military official
emerging as a whistleblower to reveal information about classified
projects involving extraterrestrial vehicles (ETVs) or
extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs).

Since the publication of his book, there has been much controversy
between those believing Col Corso was blowing the whistle on
classified U.S. Army activities involving seeding extraterrestrial
technologies into private industry, and those believing Corso
distorted his distinguished military service in order to assume a
historical role far beyond his actual achievements.

Those most
critical of Col Corso believe that he was prone to embellishing his
service record. Most criticism has centered around a number of
public statements Corso made that appear to be inconsistent with
what can be verified in public documentation.

The most significant of Corso’s claims
that have been subjected to intense criticism are that:

1. he served
as a staff member of President Eisenhower’s National Security
Council

2. he was head of the Foreign Technology Desk at the Army
Research and Development for two years

3. he disseminated
extraterrestrial technologies to private industry

4. he
witnessed an extraterrestrial biological entity (EBE) being shipped
overland from Roswell Army Air Force Base to Wright-Patterson Air
Force base

Further criticisms include Corso’s claim

to having been
associated with a covert control group created to oversee the UFO
phenomenon, MJ-12

to have served as commander of White Sands
Missile range

to have concocted an alleged
confrontation with the CIA’s director of covert operations

to have been promoted to
full Colonel upon retirement

I will discuss each of these criticisms in order to assess their:

validity

damage to Corso’s credibility as a whistleblower

discrepancies with available documentation

impact on his
central claim of having been part of a highly classified effort by
the U.S. Army to seed civilian industries with extraterrestrial
technologies

Corso’s credibility as a distinguished military
officer coming forward to reveal his role in such a classified
program shortly before his death, is at the center of the debate of
whether his claims are valid or not.

Col Corso’s claims placed a number of veteran researchers of the UFO
phenomenon in the uncomfortable position of dismissing the testimony
of a highly decorated officer. Documentation does put him in places
and positions where the events he claims to have witnessed could
have occurred as he described.

Nevertheless, there have been some
inconsistencies found in what Col Corso claimed and what can be
documented. This has lead to intense debate between those who
consider these inconsistencies to be minor, and those believing the
inconsistencies to be sufficiently significant to warrant dismissing
Corso’s credibility and testimony entirely.

Some of Corso’s critics have gone as far as publicly dismissing Col Corso as a fraud and ‘literary hoaxer’.1 Corso’s strongest critics
include veteran UFO researchers such Stanton Friedman, Dr Kevin
Randle and Brad Sparks who collectively have expressed their
skepticism. Many of the criticisms made against Corso cross the
Rubicon dividing objective criticism and outright debunking.

This
invites speculation of the motivations of Corso’s critics who
undertake such a concerted debunking effort against a highly
decorated military whistleblower whose revelations do much to
clarify the UFO phenomenon.

Files on Col Corso gained through FOIA include his service record
and a declassified FBI report.2 To assist my evaluation I use
statements from an Italian version of Col Philip Corso’s original
notes that were published in Italy as
L’Alba di una Nuova Era [Dawn
of a New Age].3 These notes have not been published in English. They
comprise Corso’s raw beliefs on a number of UFO issues prior to his
collaboration with co-writer William Birnes in The Day After
Roswell.

I examine each of the most significant criticisms raised
against Col Corso’s credibility as a whistleblower, and assess
whether Corso’s critics cross the line between objective criticism
and debunking.

First I will describe the difference between objective criticism and debunking to establish some guideline for
determining when Corso’s critics cross the Rubicon and become
debunkers.

1. Objective
Criticism versus Debunking

The UFO phenomenon has led to numerous claims by many individuals
concerning various aspects of this complex phenomenon.

Analyzing
these claims requires an objective approach to the evidence not
overly influenced by the investigators own prior beliefs. I attempt
to distinguish between critics committed to an objective
investigation of the evidence, and critics who use their criticisms
to promote prior beliefs.

Dr Bernard Haiasch defines skepticism,
what I will consider here to be ‘objective criticism’, as one who
practices the method of suspended judgment, engages in rational and
dispassionate reasoning as exemplified by the scientific method,
shows willingness to consider alternative explanations without
prejudice based on prior beliefs, and who seeks out evidence and
carefully scrutinizes its validity.4

Dr Howard P.
Robertson

This definition contrasts with
‘debunking’ which is driven by an investigator’s prejudice based on
prior beliefs, and disingenuous efforts to manipulate evidence to
promote a particular conclusion.

It is worth pointing out that debunking was officially sanctioned by
the Robertson Panel as a
means of discrediting a great number of claims concerning UFOs. In
January 1953, a group of scientists chaired by Dr Howard P.
Robertson and covertly funded by the CIA, recommended that UFO
sightings be debunked due to the potential for manipulation of this
information by ‘foreign powers’ in a way that would undermine U.S.
national security.

The panel recommended an “educational program” to
deter the general public from taking interest and demanding serious
investigation of UFO sightings:

The “debunking” aim would result in
reduction in public interest in “flying saucers” which today
evokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be
accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures,
and popular articles.… Such a program should tend to reduce the
current gullibility of the public and consequently their
susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda.5

Consequently, a CIA sanctioned policy of
debunking UFO reports had begun. This needs to be considered when
examining the critics of UFO related claims or witnesses.

Objective criticism can be most easily distinguished from debunking
in three ways when it comes to whistleblower testimonies.

First, the
objective critic is willing “to consider alternative explanations”
if any inconsistencies are found in what the whistleblower claims
and what can be objectively verified. In contrast, a debunker will
automatically reject alternative explanations and will dismiss UFO
related claims if any inconsistencies are found.

Second, the
objective critic will scrutinize
inconsistencies and seek to judge how significant these are in
relation to the claims made by the whistleblower. In contrast, a
debunker will highlight such inconsistencies, overplaying their
significance in relation to the integrity and reliability of the
whistleblower.

Third, the objective critic will evaluate the pros
and cons for a whistleblower’s testimony and reach a balanced
assessment. In contrast, a debunker will focus on the cons and argue
for dismissing the testimony of the whistleblower, regardless of the
pros.

2. Was Col
Corso a (staff) member of the National Security Council?

In the biographical description found in
The Day after Roswell, Corso claimed that the served on “Dwight D. Eisenhower’s National
Security Council as a lieutenant colonel”

Elsewhere in his book,
Col Corso states that he was “on the NSC staff”6

He claims that in
his fifth year he personally asked President Eisenhower to be
released as a staff member of the National Security Council (NSC) so
he take up his own military command in New Mexico7

In his notes, he
claims that from 1953-57 he was, “a member of the National Security
Council Staff”8

According to Col Corso, Lt General Trudeau had sent
him to serve in the NSC under President Eisenhower

In his book he
says that he “was working in some of the most secret areas of
military intelligence, reviewing heavily classified information on
behalf of General Trudeau”9

There have been two major criticisms of Corso’s claims regarding his
service with the NSC.

One, by Stanton Friedman and Dr Randle
criticize Corso for claiming to have served on the NSC itself,
rather than as a liaison officer on an NSC committee. The second
criticism by Brad Sparks claims that neither the Psychological
Strategy Board (PSB) or the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) both
of which Corso served on, were part of the NSC. These critics all
conclude that Corso embellished his precise role with the NSC and
that his entire testimony therefore becomes unreliable. I deal with
each of these criticisms in turn.

Corso’s military record confirms that from 1953 to 1956, he was
given intelligence staff assignments on both the Psychological
Strategy Board (PSB) and the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB).

This is consistent with an FBI Report
that
states that Corso was “assigned to the Operations Coordinating Board
(OCB), National Security Council.”10

It can therefore be confirmed
that Corso was assigned as an intelligence staff member to at least
two committees that performed
important psychological warfare functions within the Eisenhower
administration.

Two of these committees, the PSB and OCB almost
certainly dealt with managing the public response to UFO
information. Friedman’s criticism of Corso stems from a sworn affidavit made by Col Corso two months before his death in July
1998.

In the affidavit Corso claimed that he “was a member of
President Eisenhower’s National Security Council.”11

Friedman conducted research at the Eisenhower Library into Col Corso’s claim of having being a ‘member of the NSC’. Friedman says
that the archivist never found any evidence that Col Corso served as
a member of the NSC or attended any NSC meetings.

This led him to
dismiss Corso’s claim of serving on the NSC. This is what Friedman
wrote to the author on the UFO Updates forum:

You want to believe that Corso was
on the National Security Council. If you do any checking… you
will find that the NSC’s membership is determined by Statute. He
had none of the positions that would have permitted him to be
named a member. Do you have any reason to claim that the
Eisenhower Library was lying when they said he was not a member
and did not attend any meetings?

A referral letter about him
makes clear he was a liaison man... not a member.12

The problem in settling this issue is
exactly what part of the NSC did Corso claim to be a member of?

What
is the cabinet level committee chaired by the President generally
known as the NSC, or one of the various interagency committees
formally and/or functionally associated with the NSC and generally
described as comprising the NSC system? At the apex of the NSC are
cabinet level officials and heads of various departments and
agencies meeting regularly to discuss national security issues.

During the Eisenhower administration, the NSC comprised the
following:

… five statutory members: the
President, Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense, and
Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization. Depending on the
subject under discussion, as many as a score of other senior
Cabinet members and advisers, including the Secretary of the
Treasury, the Chairman of the JCS, and the Director of Central
Intelligence, attended and participated.”13

Col Corso never claimed, in his book or
notes, to have been a member of the NSC as described above, but that
he had been on the NSC staff.

This suggests that the Affidavit,
signed only two months before his death at 83 years of age,
containing the reference to him having been a member of the NSC, can
be attributed to human error.

The aged and ill Corso failed to
insert the qualifying word ‘staff’ before the phrase “member of
President Eisenhower’s National Security Council.”

Concerning what part of the NSC precisely Corso served on, we learn
of the OCB association with the NSC in the following description of
how the NSC discussed its agenda and implemented its decisions
during Corso’s service:

President Eisenhower created the
Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) to follow up on all NSC
decisions.

The OCB met regularly on Wednesday afternoons at the
Department of State, and was composed of the Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs, Deputy Secretary of Defense, the
Directors of CIA, USIA, and ICA, and the Special Assistants to
the President for National Security Affairs and Security
Operations Coordination.

The OCB was the coordinating and
implementing arm of the NSC for all aspects of the
implementation of national security policy. NSC action papers
were assigned to a team from the OCB for follow-up. More than 40
interagency working groups were established with experts for
various countries and subjects.

This 24-person staff of the OCB
supported these working groups in which officials from various
agencies met each other for the first time.14

In addition to the ‘Operations
Coordinating Board’ being responsible for implementing NSC decisions
it was also mandated to report to the NSC as stipulated in the
executive order creating it.

The role of the OCB is described in official history of the NSC
which states of the OCB:

“Established as an independent agency by EO
10483, September 2, 1953, to report to the NSC on the development,
by appropriate Executive branch agencies, of operational plans for
national security policies of international import.”15

While
formally independent, the OCB and the PSB were functionally part of
the NSC system, since it was required for them both to report to the NSC and implement NSC decisions.

Consequently, it can be concluded that Corso served in a support
staff capacity to the NSC rather than having been a member of the
NSC proper. NSC was the ultimate government entity to which the
Operations Coordination Board had to report and implement decisions
received from. This view that the OCB was functionally part of the
NSC was confirmed by the FBI report so it is true that Corso served
on the staff of the NSC.

The origin of Corso’s sworn statement that
he had been a member of the NSC related to his membership in one of
the subordinate committees - the OCB and its predecessor the PSB.

Friedman has taken Corso quite literally to mean that he served on
the NSC when it’s clear from the context of his book, notes and
interviews, Corso was only referring to his membership in the
Operations Coordinating Board and other committees attached to the
NSC. This has led to Friedman concluding that Corso was making
misleading statements of serving both as a member of the NSC and
attending NSC meetings involving the President and other Cabinet
level officials.

This explains why the Eisenhower Library archivist
could find no evidence of Corso having been a member of the NSC or
having attended NSC meetings, Friedman was looking at the wrong
committee in terms of Corso’s membership and attendance.

Clearly, Corso attended meetings of the NSC Operations Coordination Board and
PSB, so Friedman’s contention that he could not find records
confirming Corso’s attendance at NSC meetings is misleading. Corso
clearly attended the PSB and OCB meetings during his four year
assignment to the Eisenhower administration and the NSC.

A similar misunderstanding of Corso’s role in the NSC is stated by Kevin Randle in the following:

… the Eisenhower Library lacked the
records to substantiate Corso’s claim, not because those records
were incomplete, but because they never existed in the first
place. Here is another significant discrepancy that you choose
to ignore by saying maybe, possibly, perhaps, but have no
evidence to even begin a simple investigation, other than the
word of a man who has been caught several times making false
claims.16

Dr Randle is also reaching a mistaken
conclusion about Corso’s veracity as a whistleblower based on his
focus on a statement made in Corso’s affidavit and taken out of
context to infer something negative about Corso’s background.

Corso
had earlier cleared such a possible confusion in his book and during
subsequent interviews. Dr Randle failed to examine the precise role
Col Corso played in the NSC and the various committees he attended,
and how the NSC is a multi-tiered institution. Col Corso was clearly
assigned to the military staff of both the PSB and OCB which were
part of the NSC system developed in the Eisenhower administration.

Another criticism is made by Brad Sparks who claims that the OCB did
not become formally part of the NSC until 1957 as a result of
Executive Order 10700 that incorporated the OCB into the NSC. Sparks
claims that Corso was embellishing his military service by claiming
that he had served in the more prestigious NSC as opposed to the
less prestigious OCB.

Sparks writes:

Corso served as a staff member of an
“independent agency,” something called the OCB from Feb 24,
1954, to Oct. 20, 1956, according to his records, ‘not’ as a
staff member of the NSC…. The OCB (Operations Coordinating Board
and its predecessor the Psychological Strategy Board) was not a
part of the NSC …17

Sparks
criticism is incorrect in a number of ways.

First, the OCB was functionally part
of the NSC from its inception due to its reporting to and
implementing NSC decisions. The OCB’s formal incorporation into
the NSC in 1957 was done for organizational reasons, and did not
change its chief function as an interagency committee that was
part of the NSC system.

Second, an FBI record refers to Corso having served on the OCB NSC, thereby confirming that it
was widely understand that the OCB was part of the NSC from its
inception.

Fourth, Robert Cutler wrote an
official history for the CIA about his experience while serving
as Eisenhower’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs.
Cutler served on the Psychological Strategy Board, the NSC
Planning Board and the Operations Coordinating Board from the
years 1951-58.

Cutler described the role of the OCB in
implementing policies approved by the NSC as follows:

Finally, the President approves,
modifies, or rejects the Council’s recommendations, transmits
those policies which he approves to the departments and agencies
responsible for planning their execution, as a rule - where
international affairs are concerned - [he] requests the NSC
Operations Coordinating Board to assist these departments and
agencies in coordinating their respective planning for action
under the approved policies.18

A significant flaw in Sparks’ argument
is that he is not consistent in his criticisms.

His more recent
criticism against Corso is a reversal of his previous position that
the PSB was part of the NSC and that Corso had been appointed to the
NSC when serving in the Eisenhower administration.

In his definitive
‘expose’ of Corso’s book, written in August 1998, Sparks wrote:

“The PSB was a division of the
National Security Council (NSC), not the CIA, and it didn’t
exist in 1947. The PSB was created on April 4, 1951. Corso
should have known this from his tour of duty at the NSC in the
early 50’s.”19

The documentary and historical evidence
supports Corso’s contention that he served as a staff member of the
NSC while assigned to the OCB and PSB.

Furthermore, Sparks’
criticisms of Corso fail to be consistent. Sparks has been the most
dismissive of all Corso’s critics when it comes to Corso’s
credentials and background.

This suggests to this author that he is
motivated to disparage Corso regardless of the documentary evidence
supporting Corso’s claims. In the case of Friedman
and Dr Randle, both try to disparage Corso by emphasizing his
alleged claim in his Affidavit of having served on the NSC itself.

They ignore Corso’s repeated statements,
made earlier, to having been a staffer assigned to the NSC. They put
great emphasis on what is obviously an oversight on Corso’s part
that can be attributed to his deteriorating health.

They ignore
previous interviews and writing which consistently claim that Corso
had served on the NSC staff. This suggests both Friedman and
Randle are intentionally posturing to disparage the significance of Corso’s
testimony by over emphasizing inconsistencies in his testimony.

The
failure of Randle, Sparks and Friedman to consider alternative
explanations for inconsistencies in Corso’s testimony; their
overblown emphasis on the significance of the inconsistencies; and
their lack of effort to reach a balanced conclusion over the pros
and cons of Corso’s testimony, suggests they have crossed the
Rubicon from objective criticism into debunking.

3. Did
Col Corso officially work with Majestic-12?

According to Kevin Randle, Corso had made some public statements of
having been officially associated with the secretive Majestic 12
(MJ-12) Group created to manage the UFO phenomenon.20

Dr Randle
concludes that the absence of documentary support for such claim
suggests that Corso was prone to embellishing his service
background, therefore his testimony is unreliable. Randle
dismissively writes:

“I find the references to his
personal involvement in MJ-12 to be the smoking gun about the
credibility of the book.”21

Documentary evidence for a possible
official relationship between Corso and MJ-12 is found in his
official military records. Col Corso’s records point out that he
served on the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) in 1953; and also
on its successor
the
Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) from 1953-56. During Corso’s
service, these committees were both physically located at the
Department of State, and headed by the Deputy Secretary of State.

Corso describes his role in the PSB/OCB and the UFO information he
had access to as follows:

During my military career at one
time or another, I counted nine clearances above “Top Secret,”
granted to me. These included cryptographic, satellite, code and
intercept, special operational clearances and the “Eyes Only”
category of special White House (NSC) matters.

They made available to me all
matters within the government which included “UFO” information.
My colleagues of the NSC staff did not know of my special
clearances. Only C.D. Jackson, my superior, and the President’s
special assistant and President Eisenhower knew of the
clearances.22

Corso is here claiming that while serving as a staff member of
Eisenhower’s NSC, he was given access to ‘UFO’ information. Claims
attributed to Corso by Dr Randle that Corso served with Majestic-12
may be explained from the precise role played by the OCB.

The OCB
was the successor to the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) that had
been initially created by Gordon Gray, a former Secretary of the
Army, in 1951.

Gordon Gray (right)
being administered the oath as the first Director of the new
Psychological Strategy Board

while President Harry
S. Truman (center) witnesses the event.

Given the high level of security
attached to all MJ-12 activities, it can be assumed that the PSB had
been created to perform certain functions for the secretive MJ-12
Group.

A still to be confirmed ‘Majestic’ document, allegedly leaked
by government insiders, declares that the Psychological Strategy
Board was created by MJ-12 to develop policies on the UFO
phenomenon.24

The PSB was created “under the NSC to coordinate government-wide
psychological warfare strategy.” 25
Both the PSB and the OCB were
based on developing psychological warfare strategies.

Given the role recommended by the 1953 Robertson Panel to debunk UFO
sightings and Gordon Gray’s original role in setting up the PSB, it
can be concluded that one of the functions of the OCB was,

to develop
appropriate psychological warfare strategies to deal with the public
response to the UFO phenomenon.

Corso was most likely referring to
his service on the PSB/OCB as the basis for his later claims to have
been formally associated with MJ-12.

Corso’s background as a military
intelligence officer would have equipped him well to serve on a
committee (PSB/OCB) performing psychological warfare functions
authorized by MJ-12 to manipulate the public response to the UFO
phenomenon. The criticism against Corso that he embellishedhis
service record in claiming to have been associated with MJ-12 is
therefore not supported by the documentary evidence.

The lack of
effort of Randle to find a plausible explanation for Corso’s claim
regarding being professionally associated with MJ-12 suggests that
once again he has crossed the Rubicon from objective criticism into debunking.

4. Did
Col Corso head the Foreign Technology desk at Army Research &
Development for two years?

Another criticism of Col Corso is Dr Randle’s and Stanton Friedman’s
contention that Corso served only ninety days as head of Foreign
Technology desk under Lt General Trudeau, and that he was
embellishing his service record by claiming that he “for two
incredible years” was “heading up the Foreign Technology desk in the
Army Research and Development".26

Col Corso’s military record
confirms that he served as Chief of the Foreign Technology Division
from 18 April 1962 to 18 July 1962.

Prior to this period he was assigned as
a Staff Officer in the Plans Division from May 5 to June 25, 1961,
and then as staff officer in the Foreign Technology Division from 26
June 1961 to April 1962.

Furthermore, from 18 July, 1962 to his
retirement on 1 March, 1963, he was once again assigned as a Staff
Officer in the Plans Division of Army R & D. It is this entire
period of serving in Army R & D that Corso describes as the “two
incredible years” of heading the Foreign Technology Desk.

In Corso’s notes, he declares that upon his return from Germany in
1960 where he was Inspector General for the U.S.
Seventh
Army, he became “Special Assistant to the Chief of Army Research and
Development, Lt Gen. Arthur G. Trudeau”.27

He claimed that in “Army R& D, I had the title of
Chief of Foreign Technology Division…. I was always the team chief
and made all decisions.”28

Corso’s claim
is supported by his close relationship with Trudeau and his former
senior positions as battalion commander at White Sands Missile Range
and Inspector General of the 7th Army.

Independent corroboration that Corso served as head of the FTD
despite his military record confirming this only for a three month
period was established by Col John Alexander in his own private
research of Corso’s background.29

Col Alexander discovered in his
research that Col Corso had another officer nominally above him in
the organizational hierarchy, but Corso was known to be effectively
in charge of the Foreign Technology desk created under General
Trudeau. This was confirmed to Col Alexander by senior military
officials aware of Corso’s work with Gen Trudeau.

The FTD was a very small unit possibly
comprising just Corso himself.

Col Alexander discovered that the FTD
was created when Corso started at Army Research and Development, and
the office was abolished when he retired, along with Gen Trudeau.
This confirms Corso’s claim that the FTD was created for him by
General Trudeau after his arrival at the Pentagon and required Corso’s various security clearances.30

This supports Corso’s
testimony that he was in charge of the Foreign Technology desk over
a two year period 1961-63, and not solely the ninety days confirmed
in his military record. The great emphasis placed in this
discrepancy between what Corso claimed and what his record
establishes, once again shows how Corso’s critics fail to identify
plausible explanations for this inconsistency.

A number of plausible explanations exist
for this discrepancy without undermining Corso’s central claim of
heading the FTD.

Consequently, the overblown emphasis on this
inconsistency between Corso’s claims and his records, once again
reveal that critics such as Dr Randle and Friedman cross the Rubicon
between objective criticism and debunking.

5. Did
Col Corso Play a role in disseminating extraterrestrial technologies
into private industry?
There has been much criticism of Corso’s claims of seeding extraterrestrial technologies into civilian industries.

The civilian
technologies spawned by this covert seeding program include:

Fiber
Optics

Image Intensifiers

Super Tenacity Fibers

Lasers

Integrated Circuits

Irradiated Food

Critics such as Stanton Friedman argue that:

Corso seems to be taking credit for
the single handed introduction of a whole host of new
technologies into American industry. All this is supposedly
derived from the filing cabinet of Roswell wreckage over which
he was given control by General Trudeau…

He is definitely NOT a
scientist, but the implication is that in less than 3 years he
could change the world’s technology… Not very likely in my
opinion.31

Similarly, Brad Sparks is very critical
of Corso’s claims regarding his seeding extraterrestrial
technologies and concludes:

“there really is no need to go into the
rest of his confabulations about his heroic role in getting U.S.
industry to “reverse engineer” microchips, fiber optics, lasers,
Kevlar, etc., from his make-believe Roswell spacecraft.”32

It needs to be pointed out that Corso consistently laid credit for
the covert program to seed civilian industries with extraterrestrial
technologies to his superior, Lt General Arthur Trudeau.

Corso wrote
that from the period 1947-58 that
“military
R & D was greatly disorganized” and that it was under his superior,
Lt General Arthur Trudeau, that the “Golden Age of R & D (1958-1963
) blossomed.33

Due to competing government agencies, Corso claimed that,

“R & D
data, stemming from areas ‘out of this world’ had to be carefully
hidden and the information kept among a select few.”34

As a former
intelligence officer who served with Gen Trudeau, former head of the
Army’s Military Intelligence (G-2), Corso was entrusted with extraterrestrial technologies to seed
into civilian industries.

He likely performed this covert function
with the same single minded focus that exemplified his highly
distinguished military career.

Nevertheless, Corso consistently laid
the chief credit for the covert extraterrestrial technology seeding
program with Gen Trudeau, and not himself. Nevertheless, he is
assailed by critics for exemplifying hubris.

For example, Brad
Sparks claims in his ‘expose’:

“Corso just can’t resist putting
himself at the center stage of great events of history, courted by
the big names such as Robert Kennedy and his “old friend” J. Edgar
Hoover (Corso’s “other book” is called “I Walked With Giants”), and
he is ever the powerful hero.”35

Corso’s critics have attempted to lay the charge of hubris on Corso
without appreciating the implications of the unique circumstances
that had placed in such a sensitive role.

As the trusted personal
assistant to the head of the Army R & D program, Corso was in the
precise position to play his part in a covert program that could
have had an enormous effect on human society. That is a statement of
fact supported by documentation, rather than hubris which is based
on the conjecture of critics.

Consequently, the ad hominem attacks
on Corso’s reflections on the significance of his historical role in
a secret Army program to seed civilian industries with
extraterrestrial technologies are at best a distraction.

At worst,
such ad hominem attacks are more evidence of Corso’s critics
crossing the Rubicon between objective criticism and debunking .

See
http://www.cufon.org/cufon/corso_da66.htm
* I thank Paola Harris and Jan Aldrich for forwarding FOIA
information available on Dr Phillip Corso which assisted me
greatly in assessing the validity of Corso’s testimony and
criticisms made against him.

6. Did Philip Corso
Witness an EBE while Stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas?
Col Corso claimed that while on duty at Fort Riley Kansas, on July
6, 1947 he saw an Extraterrrestrial Biological Entity (EBE) being
shipped from Roswell, New Mexico to what is now Wright Patterson Air
Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

In
The Day After Roswell he described
how he was informed about a mysterious shipment from Fort Bliss
containing remains “from some accident out in New Mexico”, Corso
wrote:

Whatever they’d crated this way, it
was a coffin, but not like any coffin I’d seen before. The
contents, enclosed in a thick glass container, were submerged in
a thick light blue liquid … the object was floating, actually
suspended, and not sitting on the bottom with a fluid over top,
and it was soft and shiny as the underbelly of a fish.

At first
I thought it was a dead child they were shipping somewhere. But
this was no child. It was a four-foot human-shaped figure with
arms … thin legs and feet, and an oversized incandescent light
bulb-shaped head that looked like it was floating over a balloon
gondola for a chin.1

Corso’s military records give
credibility to his EBE story.

He was stationed at Fort Riley Kansas
from 21 April 1947 - 12 May 1950; with the rank of Major. Events he
described as the alleged duty officer on the night the EBE body
arrived at Fort Riley en route to Wright Patterson AFB; are
corroborated, in part, by his military record.

Corso’s story has been challenged by critics such as Stanton
Friedman. Friedman has questioned whether something as important as
an EBE would have been shipped overland from Roswell Army Air Force
Base to Dayton, Ohio.

Friedman writes:

I personally don't understand why
the body would have been sent by truck (without a 24-hour guard)
rather than plane, and why it came from Ft. Bliss which is
Southwest of Roswell though it was HQ for the rocket scientists
at White Sands Missile Range.

Corso spoke of Rte. 40 being the
only major EW highway in 1947. But Ft. Riley is West of
Manhattan, Kansas, and well North of Highway 40, and not on the
most direct route to Wright Field.”2

Friedman is mistaken about Ft Riley’s
accessibility to Route 40, and misleading with his statement that
Fort Riley is not the most direct route to Wright Patterson Air
Field. As historic maps demonstrate, Route 40 was indeed the main
thoroughfare for travel between the East and West coast - from
Atlantic City to San Francisco.3

Second, Ft Riley is actually situated
very close to Route 40 and is described as part of the historic
Smokey Hill trail followed by U.S. Route 40:

“From Fort Riley, Kansas to Denver,
the Smoky Hill/Butterfield Trail was a route for both military
and commercial efforts.”4

Fort Riley is situated close to Junction
City, which is exactly where US Route 40 has historically passed.5

For the majority of the State of Kansas (from Oakley Kansas, through
Junction City and onward, to Kansas City, Route 40 coincides with
Interstate 70; exactly where Fort Riley is situated, as indicated on
current maps below.6

Consequently, Friedman’s argument that
Fort Riley lies “well North of Highway 40” is a gross error.

Furthermore, Fort Riley was used as the
key military staging post for maneuvers between the East and West
coast, as corroborated by a report that President Eisenhower, when
serving as a Captain in the pre-WWII era,

“found his command bogged down in
spring mud near Ft. Riley, Kansas, while on a coast-to-coast
maneuver.”7

So Fort Riley was indeed on the most
direct route between the East and West coast, though not on the most
direct route from Fort Bliss.

Friedman asks why the convoy came from Fort Bliss which is southwest
of Roswell, rather than having proceeded directly north to Route 40
and onwards to Fort Riley and Wright Patterson AFB, the more direct
route.

While he acknowledges that Fort Bliss was the HQ of German
scientists working at White Sands Missile base, he fails to identify
the obvious answer for why the UFO artifacts were transported there.

The German Scientists, experts in
advanced aviation technologies and working on the stockpile of
former Nazi V2 rockets at White Sands, were called upon to identify
the artifacts from the New Mexico crashes at Roswell/Corona and
‘Plains of St Augustine’.

Their knowledge of advanced Nazi aviation
systems would have been vital in determining the origins of the
Roswell crash material.

This is suggested in a leaked Majestic
Document:

“The inability of the German
scientists from Fort Bliss and White Sands Proving Ground to
make a positive identification of a secret German V weapon out
of these discs.”8

Friedman is correct however that the
more direct route from Fort Bliss could have included another route,
at least part of the way, such as Route 66 which was at the time
another major East-West corridor.

If the convoy did come from Fort Bliss
as Corso suggests, why didn’t it take the most direct route north to
US 66, then East to St Louis Missouri, then on to US 40 for the
remainder of the trip to the Wright Patterson?

One answer might be that Fort Riley was
a major military staging post for East-West travel as demonstrated
by Eisenhower’s pre-WWII military maneuvers. Another is that Route
66 may have not been suitable for such a sensitive military cargo.
Fort Riley undoubtedly offered a number of benefits as a major
military staging post and would have been a logical choice for the
long road trip from Fort Bliss to Wright Patterson.

Friedman has also questioned Corso on the dates of the alleged
incident Fort Riley and wrote:

I asked how he knew the Kansas date
was July 6... Was it notes, a diary? He was evasive... For me
the simplest explanation is that the … background descriptions
came from Crash at Corona...

The bodies from the Plains might
have been picked up by July 6, but wouldn't they far more likely
have gone to one of the nearby military bases, and either been
studied there or flown out?

The date provided by Corso is consistent
with what is known about the flying saucer crash that allegedly was
scattered over two sites: Roswell/Corona and the Plains of St
Augustine.

According to various sources, both sites were
independently discovered on July 3.9 While only vehicle debris was
found on the farm of Mac Brazel, four EBE bodies were allegedly
found at the second crash site at St Augustin.

This is partly confirmed by the
Eisenhower Briefing Document that refers to two crash sites and
states that,

“four small human-like beings had
apparently ejected from the craft at some point before it
exploded.”10

Friedman posits that the bodies from the
Plains of Augustin could have been picked up by July 6 as Corso
claims, but suggests that it would have been more reasonable to have
them studied at the nearby military base and/or flown out.

As
mentioned earlier, Fort Bliss was a logical choice given that it was
the HQ for German scientists and others working on the White Sands
rocket program.

As for why the bodies weren’t flown from
Fort Bliss rather than trucked overland, safety concerns might have
dictated that a land route was preferable to air travel.

The crash
of a truck would lead to minimal damage to an EBE whereas an air
crash may have led to the complete destruction of this valuable
cargo.

Indeed, it may have been decided to sent the EBEs by both air
and road since Corso claims to have seen only one body.

Overall, in his criticism of Corso’s story concerning the dead EBE
Friedman is mistaken and misleading in a number of ways.

First, he
makes a basic mistake concerning the proximity of Fort Riley to
Route 40.

Second, he is misleading in terms of Route 40 being the
most direct route to Wright Patterson Air Field.

Third, he overlooks
a very plausible explanation for why retrieved artifacts from
Roswell/Corona and Plains of St Augustine were taken to Fort Bliss.

Finally, overlooks why Fort Riley was a
logical choice as stopping off point for a road convoy starting from
Fort Bliss and traveling to Wright Patterson Air Field.

Friedman has again strayed from
objective criticism into the debunking of Corso’s claims.

7. Did Corso
Confront the CIA while serving at the Foreign Technology Desk?

In his detailed ‘expose’ released on the internet in August 1998,
Brad Sparks points to a number of inconsistencies in Corso’s book
and concludes that these “prove Corso to be a rank literary
hoaxer.”11

One of the most important
inconsistencies, in Spark’s view, is Corso’s description of an
alleged confrontation with the former head of the CIA’s covert
operations
Frank
Wisner some time after Corso began working under General Trudeau at
the Pentagon, in May 1961.

In his book, Corso described the incident
where he walked into Wisner’s office and demanded that he put an end
CIA agents following Corso.

This had also, according to Corso,
occurred earlier while he served in the Eisenhower administration:

I told Wiesner [sic] to his face
that yesterday was the last day I would walk around Washington
without a handgun.

And I put my .45 automatic on his desk. I
said if I saw his tail on me tomorrow, they’d find him in the
Potomac the next day with two bloody holes for eyes… Wiesner
said, “You won’t do that, Colonel.”

But I reminded him very
pointedly that I knew where all his bodies were buried, the
people he’d gotten killed through his own ineptitude … I’d tell
his story to everyone I knew in Congress. Wiesner backed down.12

Sparks writes:

Problem is that Frank G. Wisner (not
"Wiesner") had been hospitalized and replaced as top CIA covert
operator nearly three years earlier in August 1958…. Worse
still, Wisner’s office was not even in the U.S. in 1961 but was
in London.

Wisner had been sent overseas to take the less
demanding post of CIA Chief of Station in London on August 6,
1959, but was recalled from London in the spring of 1962 and
resigned from the CIA entirely in August 1962.

It is very likely that in the
communication between Corso and his co-writer, William Birnes, the
precise date of the alleged confrontation encounter in Spring 1962,
was mistakenly implied to be mid-1961 when Wisner was based in
London.

It is conceivable that it would have
taken some time for Corso to realize he was being followed after
taking up his new position at the Foreign Technology Desk, and to
determine the person responsible for him being followed. Wisner knew Corso from the time of the latter’s service in the Eisenhower
administration, where they were antagonists. It is very likely
either that Wisner played a role in what was occurring with Corso,
or possible that Corso mistakenly assumed this to be the case.

The important point is that Wisner was
stationed in Washington DC at the same time as Corso was at the
Foreign Technology desk. This makes it possible that the meeting
actually occurred in Spring/Summer 1962, and not during mid 1961, as
implied in the book.

Sparks also points out that Corso’s claim that Wisner committed
suicide in London in 1963, was incorrect and that Wisner actually
took his own life at his family farm in Maryland in October, 1965.

Spark’s concludes:

“these are not minor errors of
abstract historical facts. These are stories of Corso's own
alleged personal experiences involving supposed major episodes
in his career and in world history.”13

The major problem with Spark’s criticism
is that the circumstances of Wisner’s death were abstract facts that
Corso was attempting to recall after more than 30 years.

As for his
alleged confrontation, Corso quite likely got the dates wrong, but
that doesn’t preclude the circumstances and dialogue at the
confrontation that he described.

Spark’s ignores the historical facts supporting Corso’s testimony.
Wisner was a former antagonist at the CIA who headed the CIA’s
covert programs, while Corso was simultaneously worked with Army
Military Intelligence (G2) under Lt General Arthur Trudeau. This was
the time of a major confrontation between Allen Dulles
(CIA
Director) and Trudeau where the latter was relieved from his
command.

The details of this conflict are still to be fully
disclosed but there is no doubt that Trudeau still enjoyed the
support of the US Army that ‘promoted’ him in 1958 to his new
position as head of Army Research and Development.

Corso subsequently served under Trudeau
in a sensitive position with the Foreign Technology Desk, which the
CIA would have had interest in monitoring.

Finally, from Spring 1962 until August
1962, both Wisner and Corso were in Washington DC at the same time,
a fact Spark ignores.

In conclusion, Spark’s critique of Corso is mainly focused on
historical details that the latter gets wrong in his book.

This may
be entirely due to the way in which Corso communicated with his
co-writer, William Birnes, or insufficient details in his personal
notes or his recollections.

At the time of collaborating with Birnes
in writing of The Day After Roswell, Corso was approximately 80
years of age and his health was deteriorating.

He certainly would have been tested to
get all the details right in his recollection and communications
with Birnes, given the decades that had elapsed since his
experiences. Sparks inclusion of the Wisner story as an example of
Corso being a “rank literary hoaxer” is further evidence of Sparks
unwillingness to consider alternative explanations for
inconsistencies in Corso’s claims.

In not considering the alternative
explanation that Corso got some dates and details wrong in his
recollections due to poor health and/or sketchy notes, Sparks is
once again crossing the Rubicon from objective criticism into
debunking.

8. Was Corso
Head of the White Sand’s Missile Firing Range?
Corso has been accused by Major Randle of embellishing his military
record in a number of ways one of which concerns Corso’s service at
White Sands Missile Range.

Randle says the following about Corso’s
testimony at a press conference in 1997:

I watched him at the Roswell press
conference where he claimed that he had been the Commander at
the White Sands Missile Range. Not that he had been a Commander
(of a Battalion) but the Commander. I have watched the tape
dozens of times, and he clearly claims that he was "The
Commander".

The website of the White Sands Missile Range lists
all the commanding officers and Corso is not among them. Again,
this is not a mistake that can be blamed on Birnes.14

In his original notes Corso described
himself as being,

“in command of the Army’s Missile Firing Range at
Red Canyon, New Mexico, part of the White Sands Proving Grounds.”15

In his book, he claims that he gained
his command as a result of a promise made by President Eisenhower:

Ike had once promised me a command
of my own when I returned from Korea and was posted to the White
House. And in 1957 the opportunity came up, a juicy assignment
at a high-security base with the coveted green tabs and all the
trappings: train and command an antiaircraft battalion to use
the army’s most secret new surface-to-air missile.16

In both his book and original notes
Corso clearly is claiming that he was the commander of a battalion
based at White Sands Missile Range.

His military record confirms
that in June 1957 he began a new position as Battalion Commander at
White Sands Proving Ground. His military record supports the claims Corso made in his book and original notes.

In his criticism of Corso, Randle refers to the 1997 Roswell
interview where Corso referred to himself as “the Commander” rather
than “a Commander” at White Sands Missile Range. Randle goes on to
conclude that Corso was deliberately embellishing his military
record. Randle doesn’t provide any transcript of what Corso
precisely said and neither does he provide the full context for the
latter’s comments.

While Randle claims to have repeatedly
listened to the interview, he doesn’t provide the context of Corso’s
discussion where he may have been referring to himself as “the
Commander” of the missile battalion at White Sands, rather than “the
Commander of White Sands”. If the former, then Randle is at fault
for not correctly identifying Corso’s intention in making the
comment and the correct context for Corso’s comments.

If Corso did refer to himself as “the
Commander” at White Sands then he may have simply made a mistake in
correctly identifying his former position, rather than trying to
deliberately embellish his record. In 1997, Corso was 82 and his
health was quickly deteriorating. His detailed recollection of
events and positions would have been questionable in an interview.

Yet in his book and original notes,
there is no ambiguity here; Corso correctly identified himself as
the Battalion Commander at White Sands, rather than the Commander of
White Sands.

In making his claim that Corso was embellishing his military record,
based on an interview, rather than the more precise original notes
and book that described his position, Randle is going too far in his
criticism. In the worst case scenario, Corso may have simply made a
mistake in the interview and Randle is correct to point out the
inconsistency. Yet this possible mistake is something Randle has not
proved and merely asserted from his recollection.

More importantly, Randle is claiming
that Corso was deliberately embellishing his military record. Randle
needs to come up with more instances where Corso is repeating such
an error, rather than in one isolated interview.

Consequently, Randle’s claim that Corso
deliberately embellished his military record is not an objective
criticism, but a form of debunking.

9. Was Corso
‘Unreliable’ as claimed by the FBI?
An FBI report on Col Corso contained particularly ungenerous
depictions of him as "shifty-eyed", a “rat”, and “a parasite”.

These
depictions stemmed from his involvement in rumors that Lee Harvey
Oswald was a paid informant of the FBI, and for his earlier efforts
in seeking to identify Fabian Socialists in various government
agencies.17

Even Corso’s former boss, Lt General
Trudeau who headed the Army’s Military Intelligence (G-2) during the
1950’s, received disparaging comments in the FBI Report for his and Corso’s role in seeking to identify Fabian Socialists while at G-2
and at Army Research and Development. In 1955, Trudeau and Corso had
compiled a list of alleged Fabian Socialists and passed this list on
to different government agencies.

This led to a serious confrontation
between G-2 and the CIA that culminated in Trudeau’s eventual
replacement at G-2.

Relevant passages from the FBI Report
demonstrate the remarkable hostility towards both Corso and Trudeu
on the part of both the FBI and the CIA in 1965:

From your interview with Corso on
2-10-64, you got the definite impression that he was a rather
shifty-eyed individual who fancied himself a great intelligence
expert…

Trudeau has a fetish about security and intelligence
work and cannot keep his fingers out of that area …

The Director
[J. Edgar Hoover - on right] noted: “Corso is a rat” … [the] CIA
characterized Corso as a parasite who has never produced any
intelligence through his own efforts, but who has profited from
information developed by hundreds of dedicated Government agents
and investigators.18

Finally, in rejecting Corso’s efforts in
investigating the relationship between the FBI and Oswald, the FBI
dismissively referred to the “tremendous amount of work his gossip
had caused the FBI.”19

The above criticisms are remarkable given Trudeau’s military
intelligence experience as the former chief of G-2, and Corso’s role
in some of the most sensitive committees in the Eisenhower
Administration involved in covert operations and
counter-intelligence.

Clearly, Corso and Trudeau had created
powerful enemies in various government agencies for their efforts in
identifying ‘Fabian Socialists and ‘communist sympathizers’.

As part of a routine security check, the
FBI passed on this damaging information to the Immigration and
Nationalities sub-committee of the House of Representatives in 1965
that was considering employing Corso. The Report effectively stymied
his application. Some parts of the classified report were even
leaked by the FBI to a reporter who wrote a story on Corso being
blackballed by the FBI.

The background of the FBI’s damming report was due not only to
Corso’s work with Trudeau in forwarding a list of alleged Fabian
Socialists in 1955, but also his accusation that Lee Harvey Oswald
was a paid FBI informant.

Corso had been told by a CIA informer,
later identified as Frank Hand, that Oswald had FBI connections.20

Corso refused to divulge his CIA source.
This led to strained relations with the FBI who demanded to know who
was spreading such rumors. The FBI was furious that Corso would not
reveal his sources. On behalf of Senator Richard B. Russell, a
senate member of the Warren Commission, Corso was investigating the
effectiveness of the Warren Commission’s own inquiry into the
Kennedy assassination. Corso and Russell were seeking to discover
evidence of a possible Cuban/Communist role in the assassination.

The FBI strenuously denied any
connection with Oswald and struggled to end rumors suggesting
otherwise. Indeed, the final report of the Warren Commission
explicitly discussed Oswald’s being an FBI agent/informant but
concluded insufficient evidence existed to support this.21

Since the FBI were acutely aware of
Corso’s belief that the FBI had Oswald on its payroll, it had a
direct interest in portraying Corso in a negative light, and to
prevent his appointment to any Congressional committee.

The FBI assigned J. Edgar Hoover’s aide, Cartha DeRoach, who
performed special assignments for Hoover, to the Corso case. This
was evidence that Corso was a significant player in the Warren
Commission investigation and that the FBI took him very seriously.
Consequently, the FBI report on Corso needs to be seen as the FBI’s
effort to tarnish an individual they believed directly threatened
the reputation of the FBI.

In seizing upon the FBI criticism of
Corso as ‘unreliable’ Sparks, Randle and other critics suggest that
this ‘impartial’ criticism casts doubt on his later UFO testimony
and supports their view that Corso ‘lied’. This ignores the context
for the FBI’s damning report on Corso, and ignores the direct
interest the FBI had in discrediting Corso due to his investigation
of the FBI-Oswald connection and his earlier work at G-2.

In a detailed response to accusations that Corso had lied and the
FBI report was evidence of this, Alfred Lehmberg demonstrates that
Corso certainly made mistakes in his testimony but this did not
amount to lying.22

In not revealing the FBI’s interest in
discrediting Corso, Corso’s critics perpetuated the character
assassination unleashed by the FBI. Corso had an impact on the
Warren Commission investigation into the Kennedy Assassination and
directly threatened the reputation of the FBI.

Once again, in not considering the
alternative explanation that the FBI report was slanted to discredit
Corso, his credits have crossed the Rubicon from objective criticism
into debunking.

10. Was Col
Corso Promoted to Full Colonel Upon his retirement?
In the Day After Roswell, Corso claims that he “was a lieutenant
colonel in the army heading up the Foreign Technology desk.”23

His
military record verifies that he did have this rank while heading up
the Foreign Technology desk, and that this was his final rank upon
leaving active service. Corso was a US Army Reserve
Officer
who had been on active service for 21 years until his retirement in
1963.

The Second World War had led to the
greatest expansion of the US Army in history and many Reserve
officers such as Corso continued to serve on extended active duty
after the Second World War.

There were differences in the promotion
process for Reserve officers as compared to Regular Army officers,
making it more difficult for the former to rise through the ranks.
In an effort to assist Reserve officers, Congress had passed the
Reserve Officer Promotion Act in 1954.

According to Major David Cannon:

“career Reserve officers on extended
active duty did not receive equal consideration for promotion as
regular officers. So to make amends, Congress passed the Reserve
Officer Promotion Act, which allowed these officers to receive a
final promotion to the next rank on the day of their
retirement.”24

Under the Promotion Act, Corso was
eligible and apparently received a promotion upon his retirement, to
redress the lack of promotion opportunities he enjoyed while on
extended active service.

Since this promotion was not part of
Corso’s active service as recorded on his DA 66, the record of the
promotion is likely to have been documented elsewhere, according to Maj General David Bockel (ret.) who is currently the Deputy
Executive Director of the Reserve Officers Association.25

The main critic of Col Corso’s claim that he was promoted upon
retirement is Major Randle. Given Randle’s military background and
current appointment in the Iowa National Guard, his criticism has
carried much weight.

This is what he claims with regard to
Corso’s alleged promotion to full Colonel:

First, when asked why the cover of
his book said "Colonel" rather than "Lieutenant-Colonel", Corso
replied that he had been promoted to Colonel in the Reserve so
the title was appropriate. I won't mention here that publishers
often make assumptions and the mistake could have been blamed on
them.

Instead, Corso chose to lie about it. His record clearly
indicates that the highest rank he held was Lieutenant-Colonel.
(And I won't even comment about how he was a Major in 1945 and
retired in the early 1960s as only a lieutenant colonel).26

Second, Randle makes a disparaging comment
over the fact that while Corso had achieved the rank of Major in
1945 (the actual date was 1947), he retired in 1963 only one rank
higher.

On the surface, this appears to be a
rather pedestrian military career and casts doubts on some of
Corso’s claims to have been in charge of very sensitive military
projects.

The problem with Randle’s criticism is that he fails to
mention the more difficult promotion opportunities for Reserve
officers on extended active service. More to the point, he fails to
mention the existence of the Reserve Officer Promotions Act; and how
under this Act Corso would have been automatically promoted upon
retirement, but this would not necessarily have been recorded on his
DA 66, as confirmed by Maj General Bockel.

Rather than the absence of any record of
Corso’s alleged promotion to full Colonel on his DA 66 conclusively
showing that Corso lied; the absence instead shows how Randle fails
to consider alternative explanations. Randle jumps to damming
conclusions regarding Corso’s claims that reflect Randle’s own
prejudices.

So once again, the failure to consider
alternative explanations is evidence that Randle has crossed the
Rubicon from objective criticism into debunking.

11. Did Col
Corso deceive Senator Strom Thurmond?
In the original hardcover version of The Day After Roswell, a
preface by Strom Thurmond appeared. Subsequently, the preface was
withdrawn allegedly due to the Senator Thurmond not having been
aware that it would appear in a book about UFOs and Roswell. A
number of Corso’s critics have seized upon this incident as
evidence
that Corso is unethical.

For example Randle argued back in May
2001:

“Senator Thurmond was angry about
the introduction because Corso had pulled the old bait and
switch on him. Thurmond demanded the introduction be pulled
because the book wasn't the one Corso had said that he was going
to write. What does that say about the integrity of the man?27

Similarly, Stanton Friedman wrote in
1997:

“Certainly there are some ethical
questions about the use of an introduction by Senator Strom
Thurmond, now in his 90s, written earlier for a memoirs book
that had definitely been planned by Corso.”28

Corso’s critics have repeated this
criticism that since Thurmond wasn’t aware that Corso was going to
use his preface for a book on Roswell and UFOs, that Corso lacked
integrity.

However this criticism was refuted by the reprinting of a
release signed by Strom Thurmond in the October 2001 edition of UFO
Magazine.

Here is how French UFO researcher Gildas
Bourdais declared the significance of the release and the earlier
criticisms that Corso had deceived Thurmond:

The UFO magazine article by Don
Ecker shows the reproduction of the release signed by Senator
Strom Thurmond, giving to Lieutenant Colonel Corso the
"irrevocable right and permission to use and to publish the
material described below, in any and all editions of the book
presently entitled Roswell Book...”

So, this authorization,
dated 2-7-97, clearly referred to Roswell, although it was not
the final title, 'The Day After Roswell'. He knew that Corso was
writing on Roswell! 29

The fact that Thurmond had signed a
release explicitly mentioning Corso’s book on Roswell refutes the
criticism that Corso “had pulled the old bait and switch” on
Thurmond as Randle contends.

Despite Thurmond’s release having
become public knowledge in October 2001, Randle nevertheless
continued to claim that Corso had deceived Thurmond and therefore
lacked integrity.

For example, Randle wrote in December
2005,

“Corso pulled a bait and switch on
the foreword, which is not very ethical.”30

In the case of Friedman, he never
replied to Bourdais public notice of UFO Magazine’s reprinting of
Thurmond’s signed release, and never retracted his criticism that
Corso had “ethical questions” over the preface episode.

The above demonstrates Randle’s lack of integrity in continuing to
essentially ‘defame’ Corso by repeating a criticism that had been
conclusively shown to be baseless. Similarly, an ethical response
from Friedman would have been to acknowledge his own error in
raising “ethical questions” over Corso, but to date this has not
occurred.

So we have outstanding criticisms by
Randle and Friedman against Corso on the basis of an allegation that
was shown to be baseless. This demonstrates the unethical lengths to
which veteran UFO researchers have gone in attempting to debunk
Corso.

This conclusively demonstrates the clear
prejudices of Randle and Friedman when it comes to critiquing Corso,
their lack of objectivity and efforts to ignore evidence that is
contrary to their stated views that Corso willfully misled or lied
in his testimony.

Conclusions

In bringing this paper to an end it is worth recalling what I
originally described as ‘objective criticism’ based on the work of
Dr Haiash:

… one who practices the method of
suspended judgment, engages in rational and dispassionate
reasoning as exemplified by the scientific method, shows
willingness to consider alternative explanations without
prejudice based on prior beliefs, and who seeks out evidence and
carefully scrutinizes its validity.31

It is this willingness to “consider
alternative explanations without prejudice” that helps identify the
conceptual Rubicon between ‘objective criticism’ and ‘debunking’.

My
analysis of Col Corso’s critics shows that they routinely dismiss
alternative explanations for a number of inconsistencies in Col
Corso’s claims, and for mistakes he made.

In analyzing numerous claims made by
Corso and subjecting these to detailed critique, they ignore the
common sense view that mistakes and inconsistencies can easily be
explained by the advanced age and deteriorating health of Corso in
the twelve month period from the publication of his book in July
1997 to his death in July 1998, at the age of 83.

While Corso predictably focused on
communicating the substance of his experiences and information, the
details would have become increasingly blurred as poor health set
in. While it is desirable to have details correct when discussing
the extraordinary events Corso disclosed, it’s important to keep in
mind that Corso was recalling events that occurred more than three
decades earlier.

It is very likely he made mistakes in recalling
details when recounting incidents and positions in his book and
interviews.

This is especially the case given the
level of sensitive classified information he was revealing and the
obvious concern not to reveal anything that might negatively impact
on U.S. national security.

In this analysis of Col Corso’s critics what emerges is a pattern
whereby they consistently focus on any inconsistence or mistakes
made by Corso in his books and interviews, and suggest that these
make Corso unreliable as a witness.

In dismissing alternative
explanations for why Corso may have made mistakes such as the
correct position titles for his appointments as a ‘staff member’ and
not a ‘member’ of the NSC system under Eisenhower; as a ‘battalion
commander’ and not “the Commander” at the White Sands Missile Range;
Corso’s critics are not displaying objective criticism but are
engaging in debunking.

Furthermore, in making erroneous
statements in discussing possible routes taken by an army convey
traveling from New Mexico to Wright Patterson AFB, why Fort Bliss
was a logical choice for the Roswell/Corona/St Augustine wreckage,
and why overland travel was a sensible security precaution, critics
such as Friedman display a lack of objectivity.

Brad Sparks’ overheated rhetoric over Corso’s mistakes in recalling the correct details concerning his
meeting and the demise of a former CIA antagonist in 1961-62,
displays Sparks’s lack of objectivity.

The references by Randle,
Sparks and others to a critical FBI report of Corso, ignore Corso’s
role in investigating a link between the FBI and Lee Harvey Oswald
on behalf of one of the Warren Commission’s members, and how this
directly threatened the FBI’s reputation.

The final episode concerning Corso’s
alleged deception of Thurmond has been shown to be baseless. Yet
Randle continues to regurgitate this criticism as though it were
valid, and Friedman has not publicly withdrawn his comments that the
Thurmond issue raised ‘ethical questions’ about Corso.

In arguing that Maj Kevin Randle, Stanton Friedman and
Brad Sparks
have routinely crossed the Rubicon from objective criticism into
debunking in their criticisms of Corso, I have cited Dr Haiash’s
prescription that science works by assessing a range of alternative
explanations for any phenomenon under scientific investigation.

This is no less the case for social
science phenomenon such as the extraordinary claims of whistleblower
testimony, and possible inconsistencies and mistakes in these
claims. In routinely ignoring alternative explanations for the
inconsistencies and mistakes made by Corso; Randle, Friedman and
Sparks have engaged in what appears to be the deliberate debunking
of a very important whistleblower.

In debunking Corso, each to varying
degrees, have displayed a remarkable degree of prejudice concerning
the usefulness of Corso’s testimony. This prejudice has led to them
concluding that Corso is a literary hoaxer, a liar and/or a fraud.

The above three critics of Lt Col Philip Corso has willfully
hampered an objective examination of Corso’s substantive views
concerning his role in disseminating UFOs information by
deliberately focusing on minor details, inconsistencies or mistakes
in his testimony.

Furthermore, these veteran UFO
researchers with collectively over 100 years of UFO field work
experience, have deliberately ignored evidence that supported
Corso’s claims as exemplified in Thurmond preface issue. Each of
these researchers deserves to be censored for their willful
debunking of Philip Corso, and for the great harm they have done to
his reputation, and to setting back UFO research for years by
ignoring the important testimony offered by Corso.

While seeking to cast doubt on Corso’s
integrity, what these critics have instead achieved is casting doubt
on their own integrity as objective researchers of the UFO
phenomenon.

Corso’s credentials have been well documented. All UFO researchers
would concede he is a vitally important whistleblower, without
necessarily accepting all his claims.

Nevertheless, given the
available documentation substantiating many of Corso’s claims in
terms of his career positions and responsibilities, there is good
reason to suppose that much of his testimony concerning
extraterrestrial technology and EBEs is based on real events.

While there are certainly
inconsistencies and mistakes in Corso’s testimony, these largely
concern details that have little to do with the substance of his
claims that he was in charge of a covert Pentagon project to seed
civilian industries with extraterrestrial technologies, and that he
witnessed an EBE from the 1947 Roswell crash.

Corso’s documented background inspires
confidence in the credibility of his testimony. In attempting to
debunk Corso in an effort to discredit his testimony, Corso’s
critics deserve to be admonished for distracting UFO researchers
from the task of identifying the truth in Col Corso’s remarkable
testimony. What remains to be done is a truly objective and
impartial analysis of Corso’s testimony, and its implications
concerning a high level governmental cover up of UFO and EBE
information.

I look forward to collaborating with
other researchers in this monumental task.